The creation suite includes Settings, custom modes, and a Logic Editor so you can build your own signature spin on Battlefield’s sandbox; you’ll be able to change team ratios, tweak victory conditions, restrict weapons, and even put different factions from different eras in Battlefield’s history against one another.
Battlefield Portal is a community-driven platform within Battlefield 2042 that will let you create and find fantastic experiences made by the series’ creative and passionate community. Those who want to focus on discovering what others have created will have easy access to an entire world of unexpected battles featuring some of the series’ most famous eras mashed together in distinct, exciting experiences.
On top of the content available in Battlefield 2042, Battlefield Portal also lets you play with maps, weapons, vehicles, and more from some of Battlefield’s greatest experiences, all reimagined at modern visuals. We’re excited for you to be able to relive content from Battlefield 1942, Battlefield : Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3.
DISCOVER. CREATE. SHARE.
With Battlefield Portal, we are aiming to put as much power as possible in your hands, allowing you to create your own signature Battlefield experiences that you’ve always dreamed of playing. It’s really up to you: discover, create, share. To allow you to do this, Battlefield Portal comes with game-changing Settings that will allow you to build the experience you want.As an example of what you can do with the Settings, here’s a small selection you can use in Battlefield Portal at launch.
Factions – for the first time in franchise history you can battle across different Battlefield eras, choosing which soldiers, weapons and vehicles can compete on the battlefield. Want to pit an 1942-era team against foes outfitted with modern weapons and tech? Go for it.
Mobility – using Battlefield 2042’s Settings, you can disable/enable players’ ability to Aim Down Sights, go prone, and more. We’re giving you the options that allow you to play these Battlefield experiences as authentically as possible or to instead enjoy them with the conveniences of modern gaming experience. For example: If you want a more authentic Battlefield 1942 experience, you can switch off sprinting and disable health regeneration.
Visibility – if you want to create a more Hardcore mode experience for your players, why not disable everyone’s Heads’ Up Display (HUD) and the minimap?
Arsenal – Tired of getting dusted by sniper rifles or blown to pieces by tanks? You will be able to restrict weapons, specialists, gear, and vehicles that players have access to in your match.
Scale – You can control the max number of players for each team as well as which weapons everyone has access to, creating as much balance or chaos as your heart desires. Why not pit 10 players armed with assault rifles against 50 players armed only with knives? Go wild.
And this is just only a tiny portion of the options you’ll be able to adjust with these Settings. There will be some limitations such as not being able to build a Battle Royale mode (yes, we knew you would ask). But we mainly look forward to seeing you discover what’s possible with all these options at your fingertips.
From more tactical, realistic simulations to off-the-wall battles, the power is yours to shape Battlefield’s playground. There are many more Settings that will be available at launch and we can’t wait for you to discover them and to see the kind of experiences you can create.
COMMUNITY EXPERIENCES
In Battlefield Portal, you will be able to create Experiences for other players to join where you can run custom games or preset modes, such as Conquest, Team Deathmatch, Rush, and other fan-favorites available at launch. When creating Experiences, you can also add AI Soldiers as a team or select to use them as backfill, meaning when you launch the experience, AI will fill out that match (though you can opt out of using AI Soldiers entirely in Battlefield Portal).
Community Experiences are created when you make a match, and will remain online while the Experience has players active. At launch you can also expect basic Admin Tools usable by creators of Experiences, such as the ability to ban usernames which continue across Experiences you create.
If you end up liking another player’s Experience, you can Follow that player to keep track of when they’re running matches. As a creator, you’ll be able to share your own creations and give others permission to build upon them with their Settings and logic edits (more on that below). Some of the most creative and popular player-created Experiences will be featured in official curated playlists, making it convenient for you to find fun and inventive new matches the moment you load into Battlefield Portal.
CREATE YOUR EXPERIENCE
One of our biggest goals with Battlefield Portal is to give you the freedom to explore Battlefield your way by letting you create your own Experiences. For those who wish to go beyond the multitude of Settings, Battlefield Portal will also have a Logic Editor that lets players use streamlined visual scripting logic to have even more control when it comes to creating your experiences. While anyone can use the Logic Editor, it’s aimed at those who have prior knowledge of visual scripting logic.
While the Settings will allow you to change many specific conditions with the flick of a switch, the Logic Editor will let you define rules, victory conditions, consequences of specific in-game events (like setting a reward or punishment for a player scoring a kill), and even more to create custom game modes that aren’t possible to create with the Settings alone.
PROGRESSION
Battlefield 2042’s progression is synchronized and will allow you to contribute to your experience gains by playing throughout the various available game modes
We’ll be talking lots more on progression later this year, so stay tuned!
REIMAGINED CLASSICS
Alongside the creative suite, Battlefield Portal will also launch with reimagined content from 3 of Battlefield’s most popular entries. This content includes more than just the maps themselves but also brings over weapons, gadgets, vehicles, factions, and classes from each respective game — all reimagined at the visual standards of Battlefield 2042. Long-time Battlefield fans will once again be able to take up their M1 in a fully reimagined Battle of the Bulge or shoot across the sky in a F/A-18 Hornet at the Caspian Border.
attlefield Portal will allow you to relive some of the series’ best moments in stunning new visual detail or use weapons, gear, factions, and maps from those games to build your own experiences.
You will also be able to use Battlefield 2042’s full arsenal of Specialists, vehicles, gadgets and weapons in Battlefield Portal to help you build unique experiences.
Here’s the full roster of reimagined maps that will be available at launch:
Classic Maps
Battle Of The Bulge (Battlefield 1942)
El Alamein (Battlefield 1942)
Arica Harbor (Battlefield: Bad Company 2)
Valparaiso (Battlefield: Bad Company 2)
Caspian Border (Battlefield 3)
Noshahr Canals (Battlefield 3)
In addition to the classic maps, Battlefield Portal’s eras will also feature fan favorite weaponry such as the M1 Garand (Semi-Automatic Rifle) and the M416 (Assault Rifle) weapons. Classic vehicles such as the Spitfire and B17 Bomber will also make their return to the Battlefield franchise. We’ll be including a wide array of gear and soldiers that will be reimagined at Battlefield 2042’s visual fidelity too.
Battlefield Portal will allow you to mix eras against one another, letting you create new and wild Battlefield experiences. Ever wanted to see a dogfight between some Spitfires and a helicopter? Making it happen is as easy as tweaking some options in Battlefield Portal’s Settings. It’s your playground: Go wild.
Below is a top-level look at what you can expect to use when Battlefield 2042 launches later this year. Within Battlefield Portal, you will be able to use everything listed as tools to craft new modes and experiences using Battlefield Portal’s Settings and Logic Editor.
Weapons:
40+ Weapons from 3 Theaters of War;
M1 Garand, Panzerschreck, G3, M416 and more
Plus the inclusion of Battlefield 2042’s All-Out Warfare Arsenal.
Vehicles:
40+ Vehicles from 3 Theaters of War;
The Spitfire and B17 Bomber make their return alongside modern hardware such as the Quad Bike and Little Bird.
Plus the inclusion of Battlefield 2042’s All-Out Warfare array of vehicles.
Gadgets:
30+ Gadgets from 3 Theaters of War;
Reconnaissance items such as the MAV and Radio Beacon will be available as gadget selections alongside the Defibrillator and EOD Bot!
Plus the inclusion of Battlefield 2042’s Gadgets.
Armies
Classic Factions will be making their return in Battlefield Portal as you remember them, allowing you the ability to mix and match between 7 different armies from the Classic titles as well as Battlefield 2042’s Specialists.
Armies such as 1942’s UK, US, and Germany as well as Bad Company 2’s US and Russia will feature exclusively in Battlefield Portal.
Soldiers
The return of Factions to Battlefield Portal, we will also mean that we are bringing back soldier archetypes as you know them to be within their relevant titles. As an example, Battlefield 3’s Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon roles make their return in Battlefield Portal.
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Alongside all of this reimagined content, Battlefield 2042’s weapons, vehicles, gadgets, and Specialists will be usable in the creative suite, giving you even more content to build or discover as you explore the many possibilities within Battlefield Portal.
Bergqvist says the enhancements afforded by the Frostbite engine have made these versions of Battlefield 1942’s maps even more intense and faithful to DICE’s initial ambitions over 20 years ago. “Destruction in Battle of the Bulge is so cool. We are being true to what the original designers had in mind. We’re just able to go further now, and seeing that is awesome.”
LIVE SERVICE
We envision Battlefield Portal to be a powerful platform driven by the community’s sense of creativity and wonder. Through our live service we intend to continue delivering updates for you to use as tools to build and share your experiences or to discover as you peruse Battlefield Portal. We’re looking forward to seeing the thrilling experiences you’ll be creating! Once it’s in your hands, stay in touch and let us know what’s fun for you and what other features you’d love to see in the future.
With continued updates delivered through Battlefield 2042’s live service, such as new Specialists, maps and weapons, we have the intent to make them available in Battlefield Portal. “As we add new updates to Battlefield 2042, they will be available for Battlefield Portal players and creators, giving them even more options to create the kind of the experiences they desire as the game grows,” Bergqvist says.
Battlefield Portal launches as part of one of your three core experiences included in Battlefield 2042 on October 22, 2021 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
